Stalingrad: The Turning Point: The Battle That Broke an Army
1943 · event
The bloodiest battle in human history ended in the ruins of a city on the Volga. Nearly two million casualties. From that winter on, the war in Europe flowed in only one direction. Entire families lost every son they had.
The fighting was measured in metres and floors, the Germans called it Rattenkrieg, the war of the rats. The railway station changed hands fifteen times. A single grain silo held out for weeks. Average life expectancy of a Soviet soldier at the height of the battle: twenty-four hours.
When Field Marshal Paulus surrendered in the basement of a department store, 91,000 men went into captivity, of the 300,000 the Sixth Army had brought. From that winter on, the war in Europe had a direction, and it pointed at Berlin.